This invention relates to an improved multi-station insertion machine and to a method of operating the same.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,325,455 and 3,260,517 relate to multi-station inserters which are presently produced and marketed by the assignee of the present application and well-known in the market as the Phillipsburg inserters. In the insertion machines of these patents a master control document is withdrawn from a master control document station and moved onto an inserter track which has a suitable conveyor means for moving the master control document past a plurality of insertion stations. As the master control document is thusly moved, additional documents from the insertion stations are stacked with the master control document. The master control document and its insertions are then inserted into a mailing envelope by well-known means.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,260,517 is particularly directed to an improvement of U.S. Pat. No. 2,325,455 and related to a device for deriving signals from particular master control documents and using those signals to control the subsequent selective insertion of documents from only selected insertion stations.
Once the control document and its insertions have been inserted into the mailing envelope, a determination must be made regarding the amount of postage to be applied to the envelope. However, insertion machines of the type described above are utilized in many environments in which it is difficult to make an accurate determination of the correct postage for each envelope.
As an example of this difficulty, in the telephone and credit card industries envelopes are mailed monthly to customers and include such enclosures as one or more sheets comprising a statement of account, informational enclosures, and advertising literature. With respect to informational enclosures, the sender may send certain general interest enclosures to all customers while also enclosing one or more of many special interest enclosures to select or targeted customers in accordance with the sender's estimation of the pertinence of the enclosure relative to each customer. Therefore, the weight of the envelopes can vary considerably from customer to customer depending on, for example, the number of sheets included in the statement of account and the number of items such as informational enclosures and advertising enclosures which are inserted in a customer's envelope.
While the statement of account and, in some instances, the general interest and special interest informational enclosures, are high priority "required" items for inclusion in a customer's envelope, the advertising literature is less significant and not deserving of inclusion in the envelope if the inclusion significantly increases the weight of the envelope and thus incurs additional postage.
Hence, an object of the present invention is the provision of an inserter machine which accurately determines the weight of an envelope and its associated required inserts.
An advantage of the present invention is the provision of an inserter machine which, by accurate determination of the weight of an envelope and its associated required inserts, results in a substantial financial savings.
A further advantage of the present invention is the provision of an inserter machine which is easily operated for determining the accurate weight of an envelope and its associated required contents.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is the provision of an inserter machine which includes optional advertising inserts for stuffing with a customer's envelope if and only if the additional weight of the inserts does not increase the postage amount required by the stuffed envelope.
Still another advantage of the present invention is the provision of an inserter machine which includes the maximum possible number of optional advertising inserts for stuffing with a customer's envelope without increasing the postage amount required by the stuffed envelope.